How do I join AVI's or even Mpegs together??

[dazsafc]

I know this should maybe be a newbie question. BUTTT I `ll ask here. And please don`t give me a link to the VCD help, cause I`ve read it.
I`m a little dumb, adn couldn`t take it in...
Anyway. I have 2 avi's that I want to join together. I have TMPGenc
and Virtual Dub and Gear, or summit. could you go through what I do and will it take 4 or 5 hours to do.
So, for example I`ll have to do ANOTHER 4-5 hours to encode them to MPeg. Or do I join the 2 final MPegs together.

[circleking]

For AVI this should be very simple.

Use VirtualDub. Open the first AVI into VirtualDub, then from the FILE tab, choose APPEND AVI SEGMENT, and load the second AVI. Then (again under the FILE tab) select SAVE AVI. It should save both segments into one larger AVI file.

You may want to specify a codec under the VIDEO/COMPRESSION tab so your AVI is not gigantic.

This should take only a few minutes unless your computer is very slow.

If you're frameserving from VirtualDub to TMPGEnc, you won't need to create the larger AVI file. Just skip the SAVE AVI step and engage the frameserve function in VirtualDub instead and load that filename into TMPGEnc. Then encode your MPG file.

You can join the two final MPGs you already made together using MPGTOOLS in TMPGEnc, but it isn't as accurate as joining AVIs.

If this is not clear (and I'm sure not the best at explaining) email me and I'll try to help you out. (Edited for (I hope) clarity)

[banjazzer]

Is there something wrong with the guides over to the left? It doesn't really get any simpler than that.

[dazsafc]

what codec would you reccomend to compress it to... Tryed to go for what the original was... Its say mp43

[Tommyknocker]

Huffyuv is the codec of choice in my opinion.

[banjazzer]

If you have 2 avis you want to join together, and then convert to VCD then the first thing to do is work out the total length in time of both avis. If it is less than 80 minutes, then go ahead and join them. If not, you are going to need 2 VCDs anyway, so you may as well leave the avis and encode them separately.

You do this by separating out the audio as uncompressed wav file (as per instructtions on this site) and then run the avi and wav through TMPG using the VCD template which corresponds to the framerate of your avi. This bit takes time, and the slower your CPU the longer it will take. I would expect to convert an 80 minute avi to VCD mpeg1 in 1-2 hours with an Athlon XP1600. It used to take the best part of 24 hours with my AMD K6-400. 8)

[KingJohn]

what codec would you reccomend to compress it to... Tryed to go for what the original was... Its say mp43

Hold on here, you don't select full processing mode at all, or a codec, your suppose to be joining the files using streaming.

Audio > direct stream copy
Video > direct stream copy
SAVE AVI
This only takes a few minuets and mantains the same compression as the original

[dazsafc]

KingGeorge thats exactly what I wanted to do. In the end I joined the 2 mpegs together using Tmpgenc's Merge and cut. It was still small enough to fit on 1 CD... The reason i dont wants them left in halves is that for every Divx or AVi film I want to put on VCD, I`m trying to get each film to fit on 1 CD. You know converting them to an XVCD.

[KingJohn]

Ok, well you don't even need to join them, if you drop both .mpg's into the authoring program, the DVD player will play them one after another, the join will be as good/bad as the playback join

[dazsafc]

now thats something I didn't know. Thanks

[KingJohn]

No Problem... Oh KingGeorge lives just down the road with some old dragons

[gadget]

I usually encode them first and then join them using tmegenc's merge/cut so that I would have less space used coz' they're already in mpeg format.

[dazsafc]

hahaha Sorry KingJohn. While I`m writing this thread with the majority of DivXs that get ripped off DVDa. The sound doesn`t work sometimes using TMPgenc, so I load it into Virua Dub and save the sound then encode it using TMPEnc. Does everyone have to do this most times.

[KingJohn]

Trouble is with DVD ripping, people are selecting AC3 for the audio, when MP3 would give less trouble later.

The Nimo codec pack does provide an AC3 codec for use in TMPGEnc, but for some reason it don't work for everyone. Then there is VBR, Vdub hates them and warns you that X amount of gap will be added if you continue.

Not using Vdub to start with means you might not see that error.

Its not very often I save out the audio, unless its very low and needs a boost with Gold wave